Posts Tagged With: seven seals

My son has one of your typical microscopes that has three lenses that rotate, through which you can view a slide with gradual degrees of magnification. At first you can look through the 10x lens and see a small insect or piece of a plant or a seed in its entirety. Then you can switch to the 40x lens and finer features begin to reveal themselves, until with the 100x lens you see the finest of details you did not know even existed. You are always looking at the same thing, but your ability to see the details grows as the lenses change.

Today we come to the second set of seven objects that deliver judgment on the world. First it was seven seals. Now it is seven trumpets, an object used universally in the ancient world to announce battle. In a few more chapters we will come to seven bowls from which God’s wrath is poured. Thinking as good westerners for whom all time is linear, we naturally think these three sets of seven are occurring chronologically one after another. That is twenty-one doses of some bad medicine!

Robert Mounce, a respected commentator on Revelation, argues that it is better to think that these three sets discuss the same events just with more and more detail as we move through the sets, as happens with my son’s microscope. The seven seals largely described the woes of the world as socially-occurring events brought on my human selfishness: war, violence, maybe even famine and disease. Now as the details of the matter come into focus with the trumpets we see that there is a divine hand involved in the judgment. This way of thinks of the seals, trumpets and bowls is worth considering as we read.

I also want to point out why God is unleashing divine judgment. Much like the events of fifth seal in which we were allowed to see the faithful but persecuted Christians crying out for justice, the prayers of the righteous have come up to God in His glorious throne-room like incense and he is aware.

Another angel came and stood before the altar. He was holding a golden censer, and he was given a large quantity of incense so that he could offer it, along with the prayers of all God’s holy people, on the golden altar, in front of the throne. The smoke of incense, with the prayer of the saints, rose up from the hand of the angel in front of God. (8:3-4)

The prayers of people precious to God are powerful. God sees their plight. He hears their prayers. He smells the desperate aroma of their lament. God does not stand by aloof.

Six seals down and we are all expecting the seventh seal next. We know only more woe will come. Before that seal is broken an angel rushes in to plead that God’s people be marked on their foreheads (a visible place that one sees immediately when meeting a person) lest they be caught up in the judgment to come. We think of the blood on the door frames of the houses of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt during the Exodus. One hundred and forty-four thousand people from the twelve Jewish tribes are marked. As 12 and 1000 are both numbers in ancient numerology that connote completeness, the point is not a literal number but that God’s plan has reached completion.

Lest we think this vision only favors the Jews, next we see a countless number of people from “every nation and tribe and people and language” (7:9) gather before the throne of God dressed in white robes, praising God and waving palm branches. The New Creation will be a place for all people, not just the chosen people. Not just people like us.

Presently, there is once again an anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping through Europe, not unlike what was present in the 1930s and at various points before, though not to that degree and wide acceptance (remember that mass shooting at a summer camp in Norway a year ago?). Sadly, these same feelings are becoming more and more prevalent in America as well, even in our churches. Socially, this concerns me for what’s coming. Spiritually, this cultural enculturation saddens and sickens me. God’s Kingdom is the place where color, language, citizenship, and customs neither matter nor separate because there is a more important commonality in the blood of the Christ that trumps all of these. There is no place for racism, suspicion, and cultural superiority in the Body of Christ.

That being said, today’s chapter ends with an incredible encouragement. Imagine how welcome these words would have been to the original recipients of this letter, those who knew they would have to suffer before this passage came true. When asked who the countless masses are, one of the elders says:

These are the ones who have come out of the great suffering. They have washed their clothes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. That is why they are there in front of God’s throne, serving him day and night in his temple. The one who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They will never be hungry again, or thirsty again. The sun will not scorch them, nor will any fierce heat. The lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, will be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of running water, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. (7:14-17)

There is suffering to come, but then there are blessed days ahead in the New Creation.

Yesterday we were introduced to the scroll of destiny. Today the lamb begins to open the seals one by one. As each seal is broken some monumental event takes place. The first four seals launch a horseman — yes, the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Off they go on white, red, black and pale horses bringing death in various ways as they go. Whether battle, disease, famine, or even wild animals, when the time comes for the seals to be broken Death personified will ride into the lives of those who have oppressed God’s people. If we look at the history of the Roman Empire in the three hundred years after John’s vision, that is exactly what we see happen. And so often since then, we have seen Death have his way with the godless regimes of human history.

But why is this happening? We might wonder. Some may bristle at passages like this one. There is no escaping that in this passage God is orchestrating the death of at least the fourth of the world’s population (6:8), if we are to take that number literally. Some might object that this sort of action is beneath God.

But this is not just violence for violence sake. God doesn’t go on a tear for no reason at all. Here we get a stark look at the justice of God. We must remember that justice is on the other side of the coin from the forgiveness and mercy we like to focus on. When people are seeking forgiveness, the good news is that it is available. But when there are powers afoot that desire only their own will and have no regard for God or moral living, good news for those oppressed can only be the punishment of the tyrants of this world.

The fifth seal reveals the cause of the first four. The “witnesses” who have died because of their faith are now revealed shouting at the top of their voices:

How much longer are you going to put off giving judgment, and avenging our blood on the earth-dwellers? (6:10)

As the sixth seal is broken and the world as we know begins to melt (highly poetic language borrowing all the standard apocalyptic symbols for cataclysmic change), the oppressors of the righteous know they will be made to pay for their transgressions and hope that hiding will save them:

Hide us from the face of the One who sits on the throne, and from the anger of the lamb! The great day of their anger has come, and who can stand upright? (6:16-17)

Some who read Revelation are turned off because of its violence. This is a picture of God they deem unbecoming. However, as anyone who has ever been persecuted for their faith can tell us, there are some situations in life where justice is the only way to rectify a situation. To not bring evil to an end would, in fact, be unjust and erode the very fabric of life. Revelation is dark in many places, but always in vindication of the faithful who have suffered even unto death.